


Not Enough Beer

by Lanerose



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen, Hikago Team Deathmatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/pseuds/Lanerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ogata wins the Jyuudan title, Touya Kouyo retires, and Kuwabara is Kuwabara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Enough Beer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rex_sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rex_sun/gifts), [Phnx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phnx/gifts).



There was not enough beer in the universe to deal with this.

Ogata Seiji, the most recent winner of the Jyuudan title, was firmly convinced of that. He’d thought that he had heard Shindou say something about retirement, but in light of the discovery of the Shindou-Sai connection, he’d been distracted, especially after Touya-sensei had denied any knowledge of Sai and Akira, rather than backing Seiji up, had simply let it go. More to the point, he thought that he’d heard wrong the first time, since the door had muffled the conversation.

So he’d thought, anyway.

Besides, there was the upcoming Jyuudan final match to worry about. If Touya-sensei were not intending to be there, he would have told Seiji. They had been playing since Seiji was no older than Akira and Shindou, a snot-nosed brat in his own right who was grateful for the guidance of a rising go star. He wasn’t sure he could win, and even if he did, it was still... the fact that Touya-sensei had missed the fourth match because of the heart attack... Well.

So when Touya-sensei didn’t say anything, Seiji had gone back to preparing for what he had felt certain would be the greatest match of his career so far.

***

There was nothing quite like sitting down to play a match against Touya-sensei. Nagano’s Royal Hotel was a new location for Seiji, but in the grand scheme of things it was the same as any other hotel. An official from the Go Institute sat by to keep time, with a 2-dan whose name Seiji hadn’t bothered learning yet to keep the record. The same could not be said for his opponent.

Touya-sensei looked younger than Seiji had seen him in years, Seiji’s worries about his health notwithstanding. He stood firmly beside Ogata as the pre-match pictures were taken. Touya-sensei’s eyes were sharp and clear, his pace firm and steady as they walked (if slowly) into the room. Touya settled into his position across the goban and opened the go ke with strong, steady hands.

“Let’s have a good match,” Touya-sensei said, his voice a low, warm rumble of a sound. His hands rested at his sides, one on the side of the chair and the other already grasping hold of a stone. Seiji’s own fingers tightened around his own stones unthinkingly.

“Please.” He bowed.

“Please,” Touya-sensei replied, bowing as well.

Seiji drew his first stone and set it upon the goban. 3, 4 - Komoku. Touya-sensei replied. 17, 16 - Komoku. Through joseki, the movies were standard, familiar - a greeting between two players familiar enough with one another’s styles that nothing could be a surprise.

Then Touya-sensei played a hane at 8, 12 as they moved into chuuban. The smallest of oscillations ran through Touya-sensei’s fingers as he released the stone. Seiji looked up. He tried to recall - had he ever seen Touya-sensei’s hands shaking before? Was Touya-sensei not feeling well? (Having to accept his first title through a default win over an ill opponent would be unfortunate, but Touya-sensei’s life came first. Even if Seiji did want to grab hold of the title for himself.)

There was a small smile pulling up the corner of Touya-sensei’s mouth. His eyes sparkled with an odd mischief, but they were still clear, still certain. Seiji looked back at the goban. The move... it wasn’t bad. Not objectively bad, just unfamiliar. Seiji studied his position and after a moment, placed a stone.

The rest of chuuban played out the same way. Sometimes, the hands laid down were as familiar as the tiny frown on his late father’s face when reading the newspaper. But frequently, there was something new - a kiri where he’d expected a keima, or a keima where he’d been expecting a play ishi no shita. At one point, Touya-sensei had played a move that seemed to give him sente no matter how Seiji responded, and it wasn’t until three moves later that Seiji realized it had been gote.

When they broke for lunch, Touya-sensei gave him a quick flash of a look before disappearing from the room without a word. Seiji lit a cigarette over his lunch and declined all efforts at conversation, lost in the sense that something new and unexpected was happening.

They shifted slowly into yose, and still the new hands popped onto the goban. Seiji had never seen his teacher’s go like this - vibrant and new, seeking new shapes in the 19x19 universe. And yet... as the game wound down... he began to feel it, began to know - after all, title matches aren’t the best place to try something new, however refreshed one’s view on life was. Seiji could win this. He would win this.

And when he laid down the 281st hand, Touya-sensei had looked at him with that small smile tilting the corners of his mouth, and bowed. “I have nothing.”

“Thank you for the game,” Seiji said, wondering if he had ever meant the words more.

“Thank you for the game.”

There was a moment of quiet, and then, “Congratulations, Ogata-Jyuudan!” and other cries filled the room.

“Kouyo-san,” murmured Akiko-san, and Touya-sensei nodded as he rose to his feet. Seiji quickly stood as well.

“Ogata-Jyuudan,” Touya-sensei said, hands steady as he met Seiji’s eyes with that strange new light still glowing behind them, “if you will forgive me, we will leave the discussion for another day.”

“Of course, Touya-sensei,” Seiji agreed. He bowed again, ever so slightly, to his teacher. “I look forward to our next match.”

“Yes,” Touya-sensei said, bowing in return.

Akiko joined him, and they started toward the door. Touya-sensei stopped at it and turned.

“Touya-sensei?” Seiji prompted as the room fell silent.

“Yes.” Touya-sensei paused. “This has been my last professional match. I am - “

“Touya-sensei!?” Seiji exclaimed, though he was not the only one. Touya-sensei waited for quiet before he spoke again.

“This has been my last professional match. I am glad that this match should have been the last.”

He turned around and left the room without further explanation.

Seiji watched him go, unable to say anything at all as something inside him curled up like raisin in the sun.

***

Seiji didn’t really remember much about the trip back to Tokyo. He’d gone back separately from Touya-sensei, who had been driven back so as not to get caught between stations if something went wrong with his heart. Was Touya-sensei back in Tokyo yet? The train was faster, so maybe not.

Seiji had waited for this since he was fourteen, had waited to become someone who his teacher could consider a true match, an equal. The unending road to the future that he had expected to unfurl, though, had revealed itself to be a dead end. A double-dead end, if he counted Touya-sensei’s refusal to say anything on the matter of Sai. Where was he supposed to turn when both roads lead nowhere?

Seiji ordered another beer and took a slow sip, the amber liquid shifting like a water through a clogged drain from the glass into his mouth. He hadn’t thought that taking a title would feel like this. It was... When he was fourteen, he had decided that he would do this, that he would win a title, and it had been a driving goal since then, and now? Now that it had happened?

He put the glass on the bar. It was a thick, solid beer stein, made with good, clear glass, but chipped in a way that suggested it had been in service for years. Maybe that was what he would do. Seiji could come back and drink for years.

The door opened, a bell at the top ringing softly. He heard a wheezing first, then a soft cackle, and the faint sound of footsteps shuffling across the floor. All the muscles in Seiji’s back tightened.

“Well, well, Ogata-kun!” Kuwabara, that rotten old man, called as he walked across the bar. “Fancy seeing you here all alone! Not out celebrating your victory in the Jyuudan series?”

He dropped onto the stool next to Seiji, who sighed and chugged the rest of his beer before signaling for another.

Kuwabara cackled loudly. “One for me too, barkeep. Young Ogata-kun will take care of it.”

“What do you want, old man?” Seiji asked, nodding at the bartender to indicate that he would, in fact, treat Kuwabara-sensei to his first beer of the evening, because respect for his elders was apparently not yet something that he’d managed to get over. The bartender placed the drinks before them, and Seiji took a sip.

“He’s a selfish brat, that teacher of yours,” Kuwabara said. Seiji’s head whipped toward him, struggling and just managing not to spit across the bar. Kuwabara was gazing ahead, not looking at Seiji, and took a slow slip before he bothered to continue. “You know how many years its been since a current title-holder resigned?”

“Kuwabara-sensei...” Seiji started, then stopped. What was there to say?

“The last one was over two decades ago,” the old man continued, “and Mogami-Ouza had had a stroke so bad that he physically couldn’t place the stones even if he had had any idea where to put them.”

Seiji remembered. He’d been an insei when it happened, and all anyone could talk about for weeks was how awful it was. He remembered thinking that in some ways it had been a kindness, because knowing where to put the stones and not being able to hold them would have been worse.

“Mogami-Ouza was also fifteen years older than Touya,” Kuwabara said.

Seiji took a deep sip of his beer. Touya-sensei’s retirement had been so sudden, there wasn’t really anything to say in defense of him.

“Hey, boy, I heard that Touya resigned to you, right?”

Seiji slammed his glass back down onto the bar, the thick base of the glass hitting the top with a satisfying thunk.

“I’m sorry, Kuwabara-sensei,” Ogata asked, “is there something I can do for you?”

Kuwabara rested his glass on the bar and pulled out a cigarette. He patted his pockets and looked questioningly at Seiji. Seiji pulled out his own lighter and flicked it on. Kuwabara lit it up and nodded his thanks. He took a long drag, exhaling in a slow way that left the smoke floating in the air.

“Don’t expect becoming Honinbou to be so easy,” the old man said. He opened one eye properly towards Seiji. “I don’t resign.”

Kuwabara took another sip from his beer and left the glass, still more than half full, sitting on the bar as he slid from his stool and out the door.

Seiji stared after him, the scent of smoke still in the air.

Not enough beer in the universe for this.


End file.
